


you swear it'll never happen again

by heartbreakmichael



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Angst, Cheating, Eating Disorder, M/M, Sad, So much angst, Therapy, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-16 14:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3492386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartbreakmichael/pseuds/heartbreakmichael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't love Luke, not really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you swear it'll never happen again

Luke's mouth is open and slack, his lips pulled down to cover his teeth. His face physically aches from fatigue, and Calum can see this as he brings his thumb up under Luke's eye, rubbing gently at the shallowness there.

"Baby," he says. It isn't fond or condescending, but bland and almost mechanical.

Calum's hair is sticking to the wetness on his brow, sweat holding it in place. His pupils are unusually large, not yet used to the early-morning light flitting in through the open window. His mind is elsewhere - in the scarlet moment with Ashton that had happened last night. He knows he should be thinking about the fragile boy next to him, the one with wide eyes and sharp hipbones, the boy that Calum had once loved but who has become a burden. But he would much rather think of Ashton, so he does. 

Luke rolls over, nuzzling the side of his face into the pillow. Calum sighs, kissing Luke's forehead and knowing it isn't fair to do so because you should save soft kisses only for those you love, and he doesn't love Luke, not really.

He thinks back to their wedding day, willing the images of Ashton's collarbones out of his head. He remembers how happy they were, how all their family members had congratulated them with big smiles and kind words, how they'd meant every single vow.

But Calum is a different person now than he was three years ago, and he doesn't mean those things anymore, no longer wants to hold the boy who he'd promised to love for better or for worse. And it isn't fair, would never be fair, because Luke's worse is more severe than most people's and Calum isn't cut out for it.

He thinks of the differences between Luke and Ashton. He does this often. He has a pros and cons list in his head that he brings out whenever one of them is sleeping.

Ashton. Pros - cute laugh, nice, adorable, good in bed, urges him to be a better person. Cons - feels guilty about what they're doing, urges him to be a better person.

Luke. Pros - loves him unconditionally, has an unfaltering belief that everyone is good, they have great memories together. Cons - loves him unconditionally, has an unfaltering belief that everyone is good, is insecure, they have terrible memories together.

Luke stirs in his sleep, as if he can sense that Calum is thinking about all his flaws, and maybe he can because Luke always somehow knows things. Like what Calum would order at a restaurant they'd never been to before or what he wanted when he was too tired to ask or who he was secretly fucking, but Calum doesn't want to think about that.

"Hey," Luke says quietly, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. "We have therapy in a half hour." He gives Calum a small smile before grabbing clothes and heading to the bathroom.

Calum sits back in bed, dreading the rest of the day. He doesn't want to go to therapy or talk to Luke about how they can fix things because he doesn't want to fix anything, he doesn't love Luke. And Luke just couldn't get that through his head, couldn't understand that it wasn't his weight or his personality, it was just that things were different now. They weren't nineteen anymore, they couldn't pretend that things were okay.

Calum hates that Luke forgave him for cheating. It makes his fists curl up by his sides and his teeth clench. A normal person would have kicked Calum out and deleted his number, burned all his stuff and ignored his existence, but Luke is so forgiving - too forgiving. It angers Calum that he can be okay with it, have hope for things to be better. Calum wants to be punished, he knows it was all wrong, but Luke just smiles at him with straight teeth and winks at him and throws up his guts as if that would make Calum want him again.

Luke steps out of the bathroom, fully dressed, hair dripping. He's wearing one of Calum's t-shirts and it hangs far off his body, swallowing him. Calum has always surrounded Luke - wholly and in the worst ways possible.

"I'll be in the kitchen. Please hurry." Luke exits the room, leaving Calum to roll out of bed and wish he was still asleep (or with Ashton, but then again he always wants to be with Ashton). 

He stands up a bit too fast and stretches, closing his eyes and leaning against the doorframe to fight off the vertigo.

He gets dressed slowly. He wants Luke to get angry. He wants him to scream, to tell Calum he's a piece of shit, that he's worthless. Calum wants to feel like a victim so this unbearable guilt will subside - even for just a second.

And he also wants Luke to stop pretending that this isn't happening. Sure, it was expected at first, but it's been ten months since Calum first slept with Ashton, and Luke still believes this is all a dream.

What (in actuality) feels like a dream is the day Calum met Ashton, who he thinks he might love more than he has ever loved anything else - even the sound a CD makes when it's reached its end, even the smell after it snows, even sex. 

Even Luke. 

He walks slowly into the kitchen, watching a dull Luke sip tea from a steaming mug and then act like the heat doesn't even bother him, but Calum knows it does. He hates that he knows that. 

"I'm ready," he says, clearing his throat. Luke nods, setting his tea down and grabbing his car keys. 

They make it to couples' therapy five minutes late. 

Everyone else is already seated in the circle. Calum forgot it was group day and now he wants to go hide in the bathroom, but he owes this to Luke. 

Calum remembers Luke's eyes when he begged him to come here, remembers how they glassed over with a sadness he couldn't even begin to comprehend.

Calum thinks maybe Luke uses his sadness for manipulation, but he's not allowed to think things like that because he caused the sadness in the first place. So maybe he deserves to be manipulated. 

Thrapy is boring. Everyone over-shares and Luke cries and then everyone but Calum comforts him, which makes everyone glare and scoff in his general direction. 

They get in the car and Calum is silent until they get home. 

"I have to go into work today." It's a lie, Luke knows it's a lie. And there was a time when he'd argue and beg but he no longer has the energy for that so he just tells Calum he had plans to hang out with Michael from therapy anyway.  (He hadn't, but now he might). 

Calum watches Luke get out and sulk inside the house. 

He can almost hear the sounds of throwing up from outside. Or maybe it's his imagination. Nonetheless, it shouldn't have been so easy to drive away from. 

The drive is silent, and the air feels like it's full of knives, pricking at his skin. He chases away the feeling with that of Ashton. 

Why should he feel guilty? He loves Ashton. So much. He can't help how he feels. (And a part of him knows that he could have helped having sex with someone else while he was  _married, for God's sake,_ but he tries not to think of that).

He pulls onto Ashton's street, slipping his wedding ring off and placing it in the glove compartment. He only wears it nowadays so that Luke doesn't cry. 

Ashton opens the door with a frown on his face. "Hey." It's blunt. Calum's heart jumps into his throat and he can't breathe. 

"What's wrong?" he gasps, stepping inside the house with small steps, as if there were booby traps set across the floor. 

"Sit down." The last time Calum was told to sit down it was by a doctor who told him his husband had an eating disorder, so he does  _not_ want to sit down.

He coughs, "I'm good just standing." 

Ashton lets a small smile peak through his grim expression, and it's really just a tiny tug at the corner of his lips, there for only a second, but it's enough to make Calum relax. "I was thinking and... Calum, I think you need to divorce him."

Calum stops being relaxed. He can't breathe again. Because the boy he loves is giving him an ultimatum and he can't go through with it because he still cares about Luke. "I can't, Ashton. He's so fragile and we've been married for three years, and I love you but-"

"But what?" His voice is shrill yet concrete. "Do you love him too? Because it doesn't work that way, Calum. You don't get to just have everyone, okay? You have to make choices. There isn't a fucking compromise. He and I are real people, and you have to choose."

Calum's voice is placid. "I know that, but I'm scared of what he'll do-" 

"It won't be your problem anymore!" Ashton screams. He balls his hands into fists. 

"Of course it'll be my problem! He's in love with me, and I used to love him! He was my best friend! If anything happened to him, I'd.. I-" 

"And what would you do if anything happened to me?" Ashton hits the wall petulantly. 

"This isn't about you, Ashton!" Calum steps closer to him. "It's always about  _you_ when I'm with him on most days. You're the one I think about when I see him next to me in bed because I wish it were you, and you're the one I think about when he's begging me to say things will be okay, and you're the one I think about when I tell myself that I need to love him in the way that I love you. But this time I have to think about him, okay? He deserves that at least. And I can't divorce him until I know he's going to have someone to pick up the pieces, until I know he's going to be okay." His heart rate slows as Ashton's temper deflates. 

"Okay." He says. 

And then they're kissing and nothing else really matters. 

-

Luke's throat aches. He fishes his phone out of his pocket as he chugs another glass of water. Finding Michael's number in his contacts, he sets his water down and clicks the call icon. 

Michael Clifford is the angriest person Luke has ever met in his entire life, but he's also the nicest. It's weird because he sort of bullied Luke a few months back when they both went to group therapy without their spouses. He told Luke that he was too soft and forgiving and that was probably why Calum was cheating on him. There was also one session (after Calum and Michael's boyfriend Josh started coming to the meetings) where Luke cried and threw up in the bathroom and Michael just-so-happened to be taking a piss at the same time. He told Luke that he needed to stop, helped Luke figure out that he was doing this for two reasons: 1) Calum's approval and 2) to punish himself for not getting it. He told Luke that Calum didn't deserve Luke, and he definitely didn't deserve for Luke to try so hard to get his affection. Luke hugged Michael for thirty minutes, and they'd been close friends ever since. 

"Hello?" Michael snaps into the phone. 

"Mikey?" Luke sniffs, leaning onto the counter. 

Michael's voice softens immediately. "I'm sorry, Luke. I thought you were Josh. Is everything okay?" 

"H-he's with... oh, God, I can't even say his name. Calum's with  _him_ again. And I threw up again." Luke mutters the last part, remembering the promise he made to Michael a few weeks ago that he wouldn't do it anymore. And he hadn't thrown up in two and a half weeks, until now. 

"That bastard," Michael seethes. "I can't believe him. Can I come over?" 

Luke takes another sip of his water, the glass slipping out of his hands because of their shaking. It shatters on the floor, which makes Luke start crying again. 

"I'm coming over!" Michael hangs up. 

He makes it to Luke's house in ten minutes. He doesn't even knock on the door, just walks right inside and finds Luke in the kitchen, sitting on the floor among shards of glass he still couldn't stop crying long enough to be able to pick up. 

Michael sighs, and before he does anything else, he finds the broom and dust pan and sweeps the mess up. He then sits on the floor, pulling Luke into his chest.

"Luke, I'm going to say something mean, okay?" Michael whispers, squeezing the boy tighter as he whimpers in response. "And I'm not saying it to be mean, I'm saying it because you need to hear it from someone besides yourself." He swallows hard. "Calum doesn't love you anymore." 

Luke stops crying all at once. "I know." 

"So leave his ass. You don't deserve it anymore. You never deserved it. He fucking cheated on you. He ruined everything. You don't need him anymore." 

"I do, Michael," Luke blurts out. He jumps out of Michael's grasp, pulling his knees to his chest and burying his face into them. "I need him."

"No, you don't! You've convinced yourself that you need the idea of him, Luke. You're always searching for something to punish yourself with. Calum was always your weapon of choice. But you've got to let him go." 

"You're right." Luke lifts his head up, holding his arms out to Michael, who immediately fills the void between them. "I'm gonna leave his ass." 

-

Calum got home from Ashton's around midnight. He was exhausted and upset to be home, so he ignored the unusual silence in the house and headed to bed, expecting to find Luke there. 

However, as he crept throughout the room, anxiously noticing that all traces of Luke had disappeared, an uneasy feeling settled in his gut.

He found a note on his pillow. 

"Calum," God, he didn't even get a 'Dear Calum'? "I'm moving out. I realized something: no matter how much you love a person, you should never let them make you feel the way you made me feel. You made me feel worthless and scared of myself and for the longest time I just dealt with it. But not anymore. I'll be filing for divorce soon. If you find any of my  things that I might've forgotten, just throw them out. I don't think I would like to talk to you any time soon. Luke." 

Calum balls the paper up and throws it across the room, along with any feelings he had left for Luke.

 

**Author's Note:**

> THIS WAS SO SAD IM SORRY 
> 
> if u love this or me follow me on Twitter @level5luke


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